Thursday, June 15, 2006

Thursday and Friday I worked on
The Bike With 2 Brains
a bit during the day — just like last year, painting parts. On Friday night Ali and I headed to
Betty Meyer's Bullwinkle Café
(622 Lake Ave., a.k.a. "Bullwinkle's")
By the time we arrived,
Autumn In Halifax
was midway through his set. I've seen Dave be more focused and do a tighter set, but Bullwinkle's brings out the laid-back in anybody. Next was
Carbonic
who did his good muted-vocal acoustic. I realized that whenever I hear him, around the third song I'm thinking he's pretty interesting, but since his style doesn't vary much (or at least something about his style) that by the eighth song, I don't like it anymore. Anyway, we stayed through
Idatel
who are this chaos-rock styled band with drums, guitar, banjo, and accordion ... they were interesting and complex but would do much better at more of a rock-venue. Ali noted that "they have fantastic melodies."

On Saturday I got up pretty early and quickly set up a simple flyer for
The Bike With 2 Brains
to identify the website mostly. Around 3 I headed to
ARTWalk
(University Ave. at Atlantic Ave.)
and got in touch with the coordinators. I set it up in the parking lot near East Avenue at
George Eastman House
(900 East Ave.)
No pictures really capture it operationally as the whole trick is in its chaotic motion — the illusion that you can easily navigate through cooperation. A few friends of mine showed up and I was really glad that Dave from
Autumn In Halifax
got a chance to see it because he
let me use some of his music with it.
In all, there were probably 60 people who stopped by to check it out and about 20 who tried it. Toward the end of the event I was horsing around on it and broke one of the welds on the back — not surprisingly, really: every time I upgrade the frame so it won't break, I make it a little bit stiffer, and now it's tougher than before but more in some ways more brittle, so it won't flex enough to permit sharp impacts. Oops.

Monday evening I made it out to
The Bug Jar
(219 Monroe Ave.)
Ordinarily it's 1980's DJ night and this was no exception. However, they also featured a couple bands early-on. First up was
Roger Houston and I was pleased that there were 15 or so people who got to see him. I've admired his clean, simple solo-synth-pop sound [thankfully that's written because I'd hate to have to speak that description]. Kind of like hi-fi low-fi: his equipment offers good quality sound but the experience is that of a basement-band. After he finished, they decided to let one of the DJ's have a crack for a while. The songs were quite good and a lot of people got up to dance, so I was concerned that the second band would either get bumped entirely (and they came all the way from Florida) or the crew wouldn't like them.

Fortunately, once
Yip Yip
got going, it seemed people liked them. The band is this duo who are completely covered in black-and-white checkered-print and who play this great, "dreamland" synth-pop. The music is rather catchy and disorienting, and combined with the absurd visuals, it feels like you're watching a dream. It's the kind of band that
Tim Burton
would put into one of his movies if he needed a band, and they conveniently would already sound a bit like
Danny Elfman
and/or
Oingo Boingo.

Tuesday night I went to
The Dryden Theater
at
George Eastman House
(900 East Ave.)
to see
Gimme Shelter.
It's essentially a documentary that follows
The Rolling Stones
on their United States tour that culminated in the free show at the Altamont Speedway in California. At that final show,
The Hells Angels
were acting as bouncers/security and ended up stabbing a guy to death — an act caught on film, further revealing that he had drawn a gun. The film is structured as footage of a song each at several cities on the tour interspersed by the Stones' reactions to the violence at Altamont. Through this, the whole tour seems ominous and tense — it's really quite unnerving to watch.

The whole thing got me to thinking about conflict and its resolution. In one sense, if a guy pulls a gun he has it coming. I guess my thought is that there are other ways to handle such a situation. The Hells Angels have been known as a group who uses violence as a universal solution, so in a way, a coldly rational, inhuman solution would be to eradicate the Angels — I mean, they tend to act like wasps in that if the others think you've injured one of them, you're in a world of hurt, so to avoid erroneous attacks, murder is the only logical solution.

However, it's really the capacity to quickly kill another person that exacerbates the problem. I mean, it takes a lot of effort to kill another person with your bare hands — at least given that there's an even match, and alternatively, at least much longer a process than pulling the trigger on a gun or even the slash of a knife (which are actually more deadly up close, and perhaps even more deadly close than guns are at a distance.) Diplomacy is only possible if you've got the time to do it, so in a situation where people can kill one another quickly, it's really not effective. When thinking of the lightning pace of a fight, it's comparatively strange how blandly sterile courtrooms are — without weapons, crime and violence seem like an abstract concept rather than a concrete reality.

In the end, I'd rather have cooler heads prevail. Fewer dead people that way.

Tonight at
The California Brew Haus
(402 West Ridge Rd.)
is
Pleasing Iris,
awesome female sex-energy spewing hard rock band
Yer Mom
(formerly Your Mom),
and rock-and-roll band
Static Cling
(who, like the last time I saw them in November 2002, are apparently missing one of their members) starting around 9 p.m.
[source:
Freetime]

Tonight at
The Bug Jar
(219 Monroe Ave.)
is
Luke and Aaron's Birthday Bash
featuring punk-rock/hard-rock and a bit of rockabilly from
The UV Rays,
classic-style punk from
The Teenage Junkies,
and hard-rock from
Orodruin
starting around 6 p.m.
[source:
Bug Jar calendar][18+]

About the title ...
In 1618, protesters threw two Imperial governors out the window of Prague Castle (see the
Wikipedia article
for more info.)

This page is Jason Olshefsky's list of things to do in Rochester, NY and the surrounding region (including nearby towns Irondequoit, Webster, Penfield, Pittsford, Victor, Henrietta, Gates, Chili, Greece, and Charlotte, and occasionally other places in Monroe County and the Western New York region.) It is updated every week with daily listings for entertainment, activities, performances, movies, music, bands, comedy, improv, poetry, storytelling, lectures, discussions, debates, theater, plays, and generally fun things to do.
Music events are usually original bands with occasional cover bands and DJ's with musical styles including punk, emo, ska, swing, rock, rock-and-roll, alternative, metal, jazz, blues, noise band, experimental music, folk, acoustic, and "world-beat."
Events listed take place during the day, in the evenings, or as part of the city's nightlife as listed.
Although I'm reluctant to admit it, it is a Rochester blog and I'm essentially blogging about Rochester events.
Oh, and it's spelled JayceLand with no space and a capital L, not Jayce Land, Jaycee Land, Jace Land, Jase Land, Joyce Land, Jayce World, Jayceeland, Jaceland, Jaseland, Joyceland, Jayceworld, Jayceeworld, Jaceworld, Jaseworld, nor Joyceworld. (Now if you misspell it in some search engine, you at least get a shot at finding it.)
It's also not to be confused with
Jake's World
or JakesWorld which is a site of a Rochester animator.
While I'm on the topic of keywords for search engines, this update includes information for Thursday, June 15, 2006 (Thu, Jun 15, 2006, 6/15/2006, or 6/15/06) Friday, June 16, 2006 (Fri, Jun 16, 2006, 6/16/2006, or 6/16/06) Saturday, June 17, 2006 (Sat, Jun 17, 2006, 6/17/2006, or 6/17/06) Sunday, June 18, 2006 (Sun, Jun 18, 2006, 6/18/2006, or 6/18/06) Monday, June 19, 2006 (Mon, Jun 19, 2006, 6/19/2006, or 6/19/06) Tuesday, June 20, 2006 (Tue, Jun 20, 2006, 6/20/2006, or 6/20/06) and Wednesday, June 21, 2006 (Wed, Jun 21, 2006, 6/21/2006, or 6/21/06).

indicates an event that's a preferred pick of the day ... probably something worth checking out.

indicates a "guaranteed" best bet for the particular genre of the indicated event.

links to a band's page on GarageBand.com which offers reviews and information about bands.

links to a band's page on MySpace.com which is a friend-networking site that is popular with bands.